hobbits

quick comments....  best turn one combo I got is sneak attack/timely aid Gandalf to reduce threat and then exhaust Gandalf and another ally to play a very good tale.  this will maintain your secrecy and bring a great selection of allies into play right out of the gate.  there are four allies that can be played for one resource (secrecy)or less and two events that for one energy (secrecy) so its easy to get a lot of allies down.  Finally, use Gandalf and pippin to get more cards as often as possible.    

To make more use of Pippin's resource, I would trade the Timely Aid events out for Elf Stone.   Or maybe even just exchange 1 copy for an Elf Stone.   There is definitely pros and cons for each.  Have you tried Elf Stone in this build at all? 

I did briefly try elf stone but I found it was not a big deal.  it arguably is a slower means of getting allies down than just paying for them or the events so I just didn't keep it.  If someone who sees this wants to use elf stone, which isn't a bad idea, id take out farmer maggot as he doesn't serve any real purpose beyond the hobbit theme. 

The only problem with Hobbits is their low hit points. They don,t survive a few nightmare quests (like Journey down Anduin).

But it's a super nice deck!

At first this deck looked insane to me - I had never seen one so ally-heavy.

But this week I decided to try it.  After 4 losses, yesterday I had one of those once in a lifetime victories over A Shadow of the Past from the Black Riders Box.

My opening hand featured Resourceful, Timely Aid, Ithilien Lookout, and A Very Good Tale.  I drew another A Very Good Tale for turn 1.  Taking advantage of my threat of 20, I played Ithilien Lookout for 1 Lore resource, and paid 1 Leadership resource to play Timely Aid, putting Radagast into play for free.  I then exhausted them both (combined cost of 8) to play my first  A Very Good Tale, which got me Descendent of Thorondor and Eagles of the Misty Mountains (and placing 2 damage on the Black Rider in the staging area for Descendant's effect).  I exhausted both of them (cost of 8 again) and played my second A Very Good Tale, putting into play Treebeard and another Descendant of Thorondor, placing 2 more damage on the Black Rider in the staging area.  I also paid 1 Fellowship resource to put Resourceful onto Merry.  Questing was only so-so because so many were exhausted, but I let the black rider engage and kill my second Descendant of Thorondor thus ensuring his own destruction.  At the end of turn 1 I had killed 1 Black Rider, and I was set up to receive 7 resources per turn for the rest of the game.  I think I had scryed half my deck by the end of the second turn.  I won in 8 or 9 turns with final threat of 30 I believe.  Eagles of the Misty Mountains had 6 attachments!

I find that the deck is too Tactics heavy. In 4 or 5 games, I've never been able to get more than two allies into play on turn one. I'm trying to use it to beat Shadows of the Past, but I can never get the right mix of willpower, attack and defense going all at the same time. It may not be your deck; it may be the scenario, but I'm not getting this one to work for me.